


Philippe le Bel

by yujacheong



Category: Knightfall (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Eventual betrayal, First time with a man, Infidelity, M/M, Roleswap, Secret Relationship, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23658418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong
Summary: A Templar Knight falls in love with the King of France. It will mean the downfall of his Order.They called him Philip the Fair.This was because they looked at him adjudged him beautiful. At least, that’s what they said. But he was the King of France, and who in their right mind would tell a King something they feared he would not wish to hear?
Relationships: Landry du Lauzon/Philippe IV de France | Philip IV of France
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	Philippe le Bel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



They called him Philip the Fair.

This was because they looked at him and adjudged him beautiful. At least, that’s what they said. But he was the King of France, and who in their right mind would tell their king something they feared he would not wish to hear?

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he wasn’t quite so certain that what they said was true. He saw unblemished skin and a regular face, yes, and soft locks in shades of summer honey. He saw a body that was hale and not ill-formed. But was he truly beautiful? Was he _fair_?

And for that matter, did he _care_? There were many things about himself which he knew not to be true, that he did not mourn. He did not love his wife, for example. Joan was loyal to him, and she had given him their children – he asked for nothing more of her. He did not dance very well, or sing. He did not know how to wield a sword…

Perhaps he ought to rectify that. Peace for Philip’s kingdom was never guaranteed. Other kings had led armies to war, and they would do so again. Whether fair or foul of face, it was no matter. If Philip could not defend himself and his kingdom with a sharpened length of steel, did he deserve to be King at all? No, he did not. Just so.

Therefore he wrote to the Paris Temple and asked them to send him a tutor. The crown had dealt with the Knights Templar on numerous occasions both prior and since Philip’s ascension, and he trusted in their expertise. These men had battled infidels in the Holy Land. He also trusted in their discretion.

Philip’s sword hit the flagstones with a ringing, metallic clatter.

“Ah, you waited too long to press your advantage,” said Landry as he reached down to retrieve Philip’s sword. “You were certain of your position. You should not have hesitated.”

Philip shook his head ruefully. “That is also excellent advice for situations besides combat, I would imagine,” he said.

“Perhaps.” Landry handed Philip his sword. Both men readied themselves once more. “Now, attack me!”

Philip tried to maintain his focus on his lessons and not on the one who gave them. Sir Landry du Lauzon was a Templar, a veteran of the Siege of Acre, and he was the Paris Temple Master’s favored protégé. He was devout, and he was loyal. He was smart, patient, and skilled with the blade. There was no better knight of the Order to be Philip’s teacher.

It was just…it was just…

When Philip was with Landry, when he looked upon his dark brows and beard and his open, affectless smile, when he listened to his warm, resonant voice, he felt things he had never felt before. With anyone. Philip didn’t only want Landry as a teacher; he wanted Landry to be _more_.

*

It was easier than Philip could have imagined to have Landry in his bed. He’d only had to ask.

They’d had to make certain arrangements, of course. The palace was too risky for the thrice forbidden, and there were too many prying eyes. A secret rendezvous in a quiet but comfortable part of the city was safer by far, and each would arrive and depart by separate means.

“How many ways do we offend God tonight?” asked Philip rhetorically. “I break my marriage vows, and you, your oath to the Templars…”

“Sodomy makes three,” said Landry helpfully. After taking in Philip’s surprised expression, he added, “I am hopeful, but I accept that it may not come to that.”

“Thou debauched monk! Heaven forfend! Did your years amongst the heathen infidels in the Holy Land indoctrinate you to such unspeakable acts?”

Landry just laughed and pulled Philip in for a kiss.

Philip had never known love before. His marriage to Joan secured their respective royal bloodlines; love had not magically appeared after the birth of their children. Lord knew, they’d been hardly more than children themselves on their wedding night, awkward and hurtful to each other as only children could be. She’d lain beneath him that first night as lifeless as a corpse, eyes like chips of ice even as he took her maidenhead. Sex with Joan was a chore, the spilling of his seed but a reflexive release, like a sneeze. Eventually, sex with Joan stopped altogether.

Philip was neither child nor young man any longer. His own children were men and women grown. And yet he had not, until this very moment with Landry, believed such transcendent joy could be found in the carnal pleasures of the flesh.

He shuddered into the press of Landry’s lips, Landry’s hard, strong chest, Landry’s strong hands digging into his back, his arse…and his cock. His cock, digging into Philip’s thigh. And yes, Philip’s own cock, aching with desire, crushed between them.

They fell onto the bed, onto each other, with a crash that made the bedframe creak with protest. They rolled and writhed, warm, moist flesh to flesh, wanting closer, wanting more, wanting _now_. Philip almost lost control of himself the first time their cocks brushed together, but Landry would not see them finished so quickly, and he pulled away when he felt that first quake from Philip, sitting back on his heels, cock red and rampant, between Philip’s outspread legs.

“Not until I’m inside you,” he said, his thumb brushing Philip’s arsehole. The feather-light touch rocked through Philip’s body with the force of a crossbow bolt.

From another man those words might have been a threat. From Landry, they were a promise.

And the promise was kept…though it took a maddeningly long time for him to keep it. He was as skilled a lover as he was a swordsman, and he wielded his weapon of flesh and blood with unparalleled expertise. He took Philip apart, put him back together again. Over and over and over. And when Philip did finally come that night, helpless and spurting, he came whilst impaled on Landry’s thrusting cock. It was glorious. Absolutely glorious.

*

It remained glorious for a time.

They met regularly, whenever they could get away, reveling in the illicitness, the secrecy. Sometimes it was during a lazy afternoon; more often, it was in the dead of night. Regardless of the hour, the joy of discovery in each other’s bodies was a welcome distraction from the tedium of their responsibilities to the Kingdom, to the Order.

The poets were wont to say that the first season of love was the sweetest, the most intoxicating, and that, as the summer gave way to autumn and winter, love would inevitably fade. For Philip, however, it did not feel so. The more he had Landry, the more he wanted him constantly, and he began to make active excuses to see him, citing official business of the crown. France was deeply in debt, and the Templars had provided monetary support for certain endeavors. It stood to reason, therefore, that Philip, as king, would work to maintain good relations with the Order. And Landry was, more often than not, the Temple Master’s chosen representative.

Shoulder to shoulder, they feasted and gossiped and danced. Candlelit and bejeweled. The court had no reason to suspect. Joan and Philip’s children had no reason to suspect. And then, after the official festivities had ended, the unofficial festivities would commence. They didn’t even strictly require a bed – wanton Landry liked taking him standing, crushed against the wall, driving his cock brutally up into Philip until they were both gasping.

But in the end, Landry was the one to break it off. Philip couldn’t comprehend it.

“They murdered Godfrey!” he cried, pacing back and forth like a caged beast. “And I’m to take his place as Master of the Paris Temple!”

“Is this not a promotion?” asked Philip reasonably. He reclined on the bed, the very picture of louche unconcern. “Should I not be congratulating you on this unexpected elevation?”

“As Master, I must set an example for my fellow Brothers. And it falls on me to bring the murderers to justice!”

“I fail to see what this has to do with us.”

“God has abandoned me. I have sinned, and this is punishment for my transgressions.”

Philip shook his head. This was beyond belief. After all they’d done, Landry was developing a guilty conscience _now_?! “Who gave you that idea? You’re being ridiculous.”

“My sins are mine alone. Others should not be made to pay the price for them. But this is what has happened.” His voice sounded cold, old. Dead. “We must end this.”

Philip rose from the bed and approached Landry. He placed a tender hand on Landry’s cheek. “Never. You’re mine.”

Landry slapped his hand away and refused to meet Philip’s eyes. “Not anymore. I’m sorry.”

*

Philip pleaded, but Landry remained firm in his newfound convictions. Disbelief turned to grief, and grief curdled, giving way to anger. Love and hate were but two sides of a coin. Philip blamed the Templar Order for Landry’s sudden onset of religious guilt, and he spent many a diverting night alone stoking his rage, imagining what wrath and hellfire he’d bring down upon the head of the bastard Templar who’d managed to dissuade Landry from their assignations.

Although, truth be told, Philip would have been just as happy never to hear of the Templars ever again. But that, unfortunately, was not an option; the crown was too heavily indebted.

“It is a problem, Your Majesty,” Philip’s advisers informed him, armed with account books and tax receipts and records of expenses. “Were they to demand recompense for what they are owed, we would not be able to pay.”

“I don’t care,” said Philip.

And Philip’s court accountants weren’t the only ones to be wary of the Templars, as it happened. The Pope himself mistrusted them, both in terms of their financial might and their popularity with the superstitious common folk. He even made a special journey from the Vatican to Paris to tell Philip in person.

“They believe themselves unaccountable. They say they do not answer to the Church, only to God,” he cried, pounding the arm of his chair in a surfeit of righteousness. “ _I_ am the Almighty’s representative on Earth, Your Majesty, not they!”

Philip had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the Pope’s histrionics. “The Templars are not godly men. Far from it. They are sodomists who delight in debasing themselves in sin.”

“You say that like you have firsthand knowledge, Your Majesty,” said the Pope, eyes narrowed. One did not ascend to the Papacy by being a fool, it seemed.

“It’s common knowledge,” said Philip with a shrug.

“Please, tell me more.”

Two birds, one stone. France would be forgiven of its debts, and Philip would have his revenge.

They sacked the Paris Temple first, killing many. Those who survived – including Landry, weasel bastard that he was! – retreated to Chartres. Philip’s army laid siege to Chartres, starving them out and overwhelming them at last by sheer numbers. Philip, sword in hand, led that final charge. The Knights Templar, a power throughout Europe and the Holy Land for two centuries, had been broken. Grand Master Jacques de Molay himself was taken prisoner.

And so was Landry.

The prisoners were marched in chains back to Paris and interrogated, forced to confess myriad sins. Blaspheming the cross. Worshipping of false idols. Breaking vows of celibacy. Lustful kissing of other men…

Philip saved Landry’s interrogation for last, and he oversaw its execution personally. Landry would be the first to know the embrace of the Iron Maiden.

“Confess,” said Philip, cranking the wheel so that the tips of the spikes within grazed Landry’s flesh.

“I have nothing to confess,” said Landry.

“Very well. I do not need your confession. Your fellow Templar Knights have already named you: sodomist. How does it feel to be betrayed? I presume that if you enjoy sticking your parts where they do not belong, you will likewise enjoy having my Maiden sticking her parts into you.” Philip turned the wheel as far as it would go.

Landry roared louder than Philip had ever heard him roar before. Not even in the wildest throes of passion had Landry sounded like _this_. Well, well. He was swollen in his clothes. Philip realized that he had found something he enjoyed more than sex.

He was Philip the Fair no longer. He’d become Philip the Iron King, and never would Landry du Lauzon forget it.


End file.
